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The quantity and quality of these solidarity events is a true testament to the power of a national movement united for climate action. And with modern technology and social media the thousands of miles of distance between DC and where I was in San Francisco didn’t even feel that far; we were all standing together for the same vision. I ended the day with the most profound love and respect for the climate movement as I’ve ever felt and my feelings only grow stronger each time I see the photos we’ve received from all of these actions.
I invite you to check out these photos for yourself here! And if you have any from a solidarity action you attended we would love to add them to the album - just email them as an attachment to [email protected] with your location as the subject line.

As the spring approaches in the northern hemisphere, many of us will celebrate Passover, Easter and other holidays of remembrance and rebirth. It's a special time of the year that compels us to think about our relationships to each other and to creation--that's why our friends at the Shalom Center have developed a powerful Interfaith Healing Seder for the Earth. See below for a couple quotes that kick off the ceremony, and click more to see the whole thing:

Ten Plagues, Ten Healings

WISDOM FOR THE JOURNEY

“I felt as if my legs were praying.” — Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, coming back home from the voting-rights March in Selma, Alabama, 1965

“Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.”  — Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, 1970

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The action started last Wednesday, when 48 movement leaders were arrested during a sit-in at the White House. The “papers of record” like the Washington Post and New York Times picked up the story, quoting participants like Sierra Club President Michael Brune and civil rights leader Julian Bond. Reuters, Politico, Fortune, NPR, the Associated Press, the Hill, the Examiner, and others also covered the rally. 

At the same time, highly-trafficked gossip sites like Perezhilton.com, E Online, and People gasped at the sight of teenage heart-throb (and Taylor Swift ex-boyfriend) Conor Kennedy getting arrested at the action. 

"We aren't sure how Conor came to be involved," gushed Perez, "But we bet his great-uncle John F. Kennedy — a legendary American who once lived in the residence where the protest was staged — would be proud as peach pie to see a descendant risk his reputation for a cause he deemed worthy." 

Local papers picked up the story. In Nebraska, the Journal Star profiled the farmers and ranchers who got arrested. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a big story on a Philly mom of two who took part in the action. More papers in KansasCalifornia, New York, British Columbia, and elsewhere covered the action. 

The sit-in even broke through onto network TV. Fox News couldn't get enough of the event: Fox Business News interviewed Sierra Club Executive Director Mike Brune, Sean Hannity brought on Daryl Hannah and told her he'd pay for her bail next time (and then agreed with her that everyone wants clean air and clean water). Univision, CBS, ABC, CNN, CBC News, Democracy Now, Al Jazeera and others also covered the news on TV. 

Action on the Hill

On Thursday morning, fresh from their arrests the day before, the Sierra Club's Mike Brune and 350.org's Bill McKibben headed to Capitol Hill to join Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Bernie Sanders in introducing a new climate bill and then rally with progressive leaders in Congress who oppose Keystone XL. 

The events got good coverage in the DC political press, with stories in Politico and the Hill. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the "climate change battle" was heating up again while Rolling Stone asked, "Is Congress finally moving on climate change?" Gannet and Reuters stories got picked up all across the country, from outlets like the Chicago Tribune to USA Today. 

The Big Day: "Forward on Climate"

The real deluge of press came from the big day itself: February 17th's massive "Forward on Climate" rally. The press coverage from Forward on Climate blew away any press coverage from August 2011's sit-ins that first helped turn Keystone XL into a national campaign or the November 2011 rally to circle the White House. 

TV was the real coup of the day. Between 2009 and 2011, network nightly news coverage of climate change went down 72% and it hasn't improved much since, according to Media Matters for America. But for "Forward on Climate," nearly all the networks came out. CBS News covered the "thousands marching in DC to protest Keystone XL" while NBC Nightly News ran with a headline "Rally urges action from Obama on climate change." CSPAN and MSNBC broadcasted live from the event, with Up With Chris Hayes interviewing 350.org founder Bill McKibben and Chief Jackie Thomas from the Saik'uz First Nation in Canada. The Weather Channel did some great coverage that is already up on YouTube. Univision and Telemundo also covered the rally in Spanish. 

It's just a little bit mindblowing to watch the photos from #ForwardOnClimate stream in from DC. Below is a slideshow of a Flickr set with some of the best:

And some great photos from the @350 Twitter Feed.

Washington, D.C., February 17, 2013 – Today, during President’s Day weekend, more than 35,000 people are marching to the President's doorstep to support immediate action to contain climate change. People from more than 30 states across the country whose land, homes and health is being threatened by the climate crisis, as well as students, scientists, indigenous community members and many others are participating in this largest climate rally in U.S. history.
“For 25 years our government has basically ignored the climate crisis: now people in large numbers are finally demanding they get to work. We shouldn't have to be here--science should have decided our course long ago. But it takes a movement to stand up to all that money,” said 350.org founder Bill McKibben.
Rally participants are calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and put limits on dangerous carbon pollution from the nation's dirtiest power plants. Much of President Obama's legacy will rest squarely on his response, resolve, and leadership in fighting the climate crisis. Rally participants are looking for him move forward on his recent State of the Union address declaration when he said, “For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.”
“Twenty years from now on President’s Day, people will want to know what the president did in the face of rising sea levels, record droughts and furious storms brought on by climate disruption,” said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.  “President Obama holds in his hand a pen and the power to deliver on his promise of hope for our children.  Today, we are asking him to use that pen to to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and ensure that this dirty, dangerous, export pipeline will never be built.”
The Keystone XL tar sands project would pipe some of the dirtiest oil on the planet through the breadbasket of America to be shipped overseas through the Gulf of Mexico. It would be a disaster for our climate, producing tar sands crude that kicks out two or three times as much carbon pollution as producing conventional crude oil.
“The Yinka Dene Alliance of British Columbia is seeing the harm from climate change to our peoples and our waters,” said Chief Jacqueline Thomas, immediate past Chief of the Saik’uz First Nation in British Columbia and co-founder Yinka Dene Alliance (“People of the Earth”). “We see the threat of taking tar sands out of the Earth and bringing it through our territories and over our rivers. The harm being done to people in the tar sands region can no longer be Canada’s dirty secret. We don’t have the billions of dollars that industry has. But we do have  our faith that people will do the right thing to protect Mother Earth. The Forward on Climate Rally shows that we are not alone in the fight to stop tar sands expansion and tackle climate change.”

If you want to follow along, there will be a livestream of all the action in DC that starts at Noon Eastern (9 AM Pacific) -- just go to 350.org/ForwardOnClimateLivestream when the time comes, and press play to watch the action as it unfolds.

Also, here in DC we'll have a big screen down on the Mall today, and any photos you send with messages of support to [email protected] during the action will be shown up on the big screen. We'll also be showing Tweets, Instagram photos or Pintrest pins tagged with #ForwardOnClimate.

I'm sure Bill McKibben will send along a full report when the rally is over, but for now just enjoy seeing this big movement move -- and follow the up-to-the minute updates by following @350 on Twitter or just look at the tweets below!

This post has been developed in collaboration with our friends and allies at the UK Tar Sands Network, People & Planet, Campaign against Climate Change, and Pembrokeshire Friends of the Earth.

The US says no to tar sands
Today in Washington DC, tens of thousands of people are taking part in the biggest climate rally in US history. They are asking President Obama to move #ForwardOnClimate and, specifically, to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The President’s imminent decision will have momentous consequences. The KXL pipeline is ‘a fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet.’ If the tar sands industry is allowed to expand as it plans to, it will be ‘game over’ for the climate – and the ramifications will affect people across the world. If the pipeline is rejected it will be a huge leap towards reining in the world's most destructive industry.
First Nations say no to tar sands
First Nations in Canada are on the frontline of the highly polluting tar sands development, and have suffered for decades as their lands, food and water sources are slowly poisoned. Many communities have been actively speaking out, and taking legal action, against the government and industry. In recent months there has been an explosion of grassroots Indigenous-led activism, with the #IdleNoMore movement, a response to the Canadian government's infamous Bill C-45 – a bundle of laws that further strips away First Nations’ abilities to assert their treaty rights, protect their waterways, and say 'no' to polluting projects on their land. From Europe we do our best to support First Nations communities who are struggling to protect the air they breathe and water they drink. Their struggle to protect Mother Earth is our struggle to protect the climate.
KXL - bringing tar sands oil to Europe?
President Obama’s decision over whether to approve KXL affects us in Europe too. In order to justify its catastrophic expansion plans, the tar sands industry needs to find new markets to export its dirty oil to. The aim of building the KXL pipeline is to bring tar sands oil down to Texas so it can be exported. Europe is being eyed up as a key future market. In fact, a US company called Valero is currently drawing up plans to bring KXL oil into the UK via Wales. The local community in Pembrokeshire have vowed to resist this.
How can we stop this?
We can, of course, send our solidarity and support to our friends in the US and Canada who are working so hard to stop KXL and other tar sands infrastructure ever being built. But there is something crucial for us in Europe to do too. A key piece of climate legislation is currently going through the EU. Known as the ‘Fuel Quality Directive’ (FQD), it would acknowledge that tar sands oil is far more polluting than conventional oil, and strongly discourage its use in Europe. If passed, it will effectively stop tar sands becoming commercially viable in Europe, making it extremely difficult for Valero to continue with their plans for Pembroke, and send a strong message to Canada and the rest of the world that tar sands is dirty oil and we do not want it.
The FQD under threat
For the last two years, a powerful coalition of oil companies and the Canadian government has been aggressively lobbying the EU and its member states to prevent inclusion of the tar sands in the FQD. This unprecedented lobbying effort has succeeded in stalling the process and persuading key member states - in particular the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands - to block the decision. Another vote is coming up later this year. Now is the time for the citizens of Europe to come together and demand our leaders do the right thing and keep tar sands out of Europe!
Europe says no to tar sands
On this momentous day of climate action we are joining the struggles of communities resisting extreme energy worldwide, from KXL protesters in Washington, to First Nations in Alberta, to the community of Pembrokeshire in Wales trying to keep tar sands fuel away from their shores.
Please sign this petition to support the community of Pembrokeshire in advocating for the FQD, and show the world that Europe says NO to tar sands.

These photos are just in from the 350 Fiji team - a powerful demonstration of warrior energy. They're putting that fierce and powerful energy in behind everyone showing up in Washington, DC this weekend for the Forward on Climate rally, and in the push for President Obama to deny the Keystone XL pipeline.

This was also the launch of a Pacific-wide Warrior Day of Action, with the message "We are not drowning. We are fighting." On March 2nd, Pacific Islanders across 15 Pacific Island nations and territories will be mobilising at prominent locations to perform their unique war challenges, songs, and dances. There's a common perception that the Pacific Islands are drowning from sea-level rise. While it's true that in the coming decades, sea-level rise will challenge the existence of the low-lying atoll nations and coastal areas of any island, it's not yet time to give up on the Islands. Over the last few years I've had the privilege of working with 350.org organisers across the Pacific Islands. I'm always inspired by how dedicated they are to not giving up or being victimised - and how committed they are to creating a bright and exciting future for their islands. So it's time to change the global narrative of the Pacific Islands - from drowning and victimisation, to building the power to fight the fossil fuel industry, and climate change. And as the global climate movement, it's our job to never give up on them, and to fight every step of the way with them. 

The Warrior Day of Action is the start of a wider campaign where 350 organisers across the Pacific Islands will be doing all they can to pressure and shift the power away from the fossil fuel industry and politicians. Help us SHARE the voices of our Pacific Island brothers and sisters, by sharing this blog around on email and on social media - and stay tuned for more in the coming weeks. 

You can find out more about the Warrior Day of Action here, and if you're reading this from the Pacific, sign the 350 Pacific vision and pledge here.

A massive shout out to our key partners, UNICEF Pacific and the Pacific Voyagers Foundation.

To RSVP or for more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/545359235484063/

Monterey

When: Sunday, February 17, 12-2 p.m.

Where: Window on the Bay Park, Del Monte Avenue at El Estero, Monterey CA 93940

What: Forward on Climate Solidarity Rally. Signs provided; participants are welcome to bring their own. Blankets and picnic items for sharing are encouraged. Let's strive to make it a zero waste event!

Sponsored by: Unitarian Universalist Church Social Justice - Faith in Action/Legislative Ministry, Progressive Democrats of America Monterey County, and Sierra Club Ventana Chapter

To RSVP or for more details, including a map and contact info: https://www.facebook.com/events/200787623399106

San Diego

When: Sunday, February 17, 1-3 p.m.

Where: Mission Bay Park Visitors Center, 2688 East Mission Bay Drive, San Diego, CA 921095 and I-5 overpass

What: Rally with speakers, giant banners, singing telegram for President Obama, and more.

Sponsored by: SanDiego350.org, Citizens Climate Lobby, Sierra Club San Diego, and other organizations

To RSVP or for more information: https://sandiego350.org/ai1ec_event/keystone-pipeline-protest/

San Francisco

When: Sunday, February 17, 1-3 p.m.

Where: One Market Plaza, 1 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94105

Sponsored by: Local Bay Area 350 organizations, chapters of The Sierra Club, NRDC, and dozens of other Bay Area organizations

To RSVP or for more information: https://www.350bayarea.org/forward_on_climate_bay_area_rally

Read more to see other rallies around the country: